Council Traveling To Ottawa Advocating For Frontier Project

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Members of Wood Buffalo council are headed to Ottawa next week to lobby for Teck Resources’ Frontier project.

The proposed oilsands, which would be located north of Fort McMurray next to Wood Buffalo National Park, is currently being reviewed by the federal government.

Speaking on Fort McMurray Matters, Mayor Don Scott says they plan on meeting with cabinet minister to discuss the importance of the project.

He adds the economic impact is something the government can’t ignore.

“The Teck project is going to have around 2,500 operational and around 7,000 construction jobs… there’s also around $70 billion in revenues to various levels of government. That issue alone, if you take everything else off the table, is a critical reason to approve this project.”

So far, council has been able to confirm multiple meetings with federal politicians. Requests have also gone out to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Jonathan Wilkinson, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

Scott notes he’s worried about what the message would be to investors if this project is rejected.

“We cannot keep pace in a competitive world if we’re not approving projects that make absolute economic sense – we need to balance a lot of other issues but economic sense is pretty critical at this time.”

Multiple Indigenous groups have also expressed their support of Frontier. This includes the Fort McMurray #468 First Nation, the Fort McMurray Mtis, the Fort McKay Mtis, and the Willow Lake Mtis Nation.

Each said the project would benefit their community.

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